Most statistical studies done to investigate astrological claims either measure an astrologer’s capabilities (matching tests etc.) or oversimplify human subjects as belonging to a certain category (sportsman, extrovert …) or not. A way to avoid this might be to measure something like “instinctive” attraction or repulsion to someone unknown. The author tested this (in 1992) by judging 369 people on the street on a scale from “bah” to “wow!” (attraction -3 to +3). The assumption that people who had their natal Moon, Venus or Mars position in a major aspect with the same object in the author’s radix, would get a higher attraction score, appears to be confirmed with a significance in the order of 5%. The more (of these 3) aspects present between “judge” and test person the higher the average attraction. Also, the smaller the aspect orb, the higher the average attraction. Remarkable was that sextile aspects seem to have no effect.

Geoffrey Dean claims that parents of Gauquelin professionals, guided by superstition, tampered with birth dates and birth times of their children when they gave their obligatory reports at registration offices (Dean, 2000). In his view, therefore, Gauquelin planetary effects might be “man made” to a large extent, or even entirely, due to the parents’ efforts to enhance their children’s fortunes and to banish possible misfortune . Dean used four “avoidance” variables (unlucky day avoidance, new Moon avoidance etc) and four “preference” variables (lucky day preference, full Moon preference etc.) as superstition indicators. I tested the validity of these variables by dividing the French Gauquelin professionals N= 7,952) into seven sub-samples of equal size sorted by birth place population. Dean’s avoidance and preference indicators should be more pronounced in rural (small population) compared with urban samples (large population) because popular beliefs flourish in rural life while fading away with urbanization. The indicators did not show the expected decline across samples from urban to rural birth places. This result casts considerable doubt on Dean’s alleged superstition variables upon which his enterprise is grounded.

The story of phrenology is rich in lessons for astrology. But the literature of phrenology is so huge, so clogged with side issues (of philosophy, of politics, of religion, of morality, of society in general), so often tedious to read (wordiness being the style of the day), and so difficult to find except in specialised libraries, that these lessons have gone largely unrecognised. Like astrology, phrenology encourages you to assess yourself and act on its findings to achieve harmony with the world. Like astrology, it flourished because practitioners and clients saw that it worked. It was claimed to be “so plainly demonstrated that the non-acceptance of phrenology is next to impossible.” But the experience-based claims of phrenologists are now known to be completely wrong. Could the same apply to the experience-based claims of astrologers? To answer this phrenology’s social context, history, literature, testimonials, stock objections, and experimental tests, all of which have parallels in astrology, are looked at ending with phrenologists’ views of astrology and vice versa. The conclusion is drawn that, until astrologers can demonstrate otherwise, the answer would seem to be yes.

An experiment was designed to try to find out whether women’s relationships are affected by what they read in their horoscopes. Forty-six female undergraduates were randomly assigned to two groups. One group was given a horoscope that contained positive love advice; the other neutral love advice. All participants completed an Astrology Awareness Questionnaire. Questionnaires concerning the women’s relationships were completed both before and after they received the horoscopes, with about six weeks between the two. Scores on the relationships questionnaires did not change after the neutral advice, and were slightly (though not significantly) higher after the positive love advice. Levels of knowledge of and belief in astrology were high, but very few subjects said they would change their behaviour according to what they read in their horoscope.

In Volume 16 Issue 1 the author published an article about the 1933 test of Dutch master astrologer Leo Knegt that was conducted by the Dutch lawyer Cornelis Petrus van Rossum. In this article, astrologers are asked to participate in two follow-up tests. Test 1 was about finding and describing significators. Test 2 was a standard matching test. In test 1 only two readers participated. They did not agree on the singificators that Knegt might have sued. This fact as well as the very low degree of participation made this test a failure. In test 2, i.e., trying to match Knegt’s descriptions with five of the ten horoscopes Knegt had to deal with, 21 astrologers from all over the world took apart. The results: if all astrologers had scored correctly, there would have been 105 hits but there were only 29hits against 21 expected by chance alone. On an individual level, only two astrologers managed to get three right out of five horoscopes. The majority only one out of five. Experienced astrologers did not score better than beginners. This is very disappointing given the fact that in the original test Leo Knegt had scored ten out of ten.

The notion that the Age of Aquarius is either beginning or is imminent is frequently found in astrological literature. However, there is no agreement either on when it begins or how its inauguration is to be calculated. By the normally accepted definition the Age begins when the First Point of Aries in the tropical zodiac precesses either into the equal thirty degree division of the sidereal sign of Aquarius or into the unequal sidereal constellation of Aquarius. The moment this occurs will depend on exactly where the boundary of this sign or constellation is fixed. Opinion varies considerably .from school to school and astrologer to astrologer, as witnessed by the wide variations in Ayanamshas (the difference between O degrees Aries in the tropical and sidereal zodiacs) in use in India and elsewhere. In addition, western astrologers increasingly point to planetary movements in the tropical zodiac to define the beginning of the Age.

This discourse looks in detail at the judgment processes used by astrologers and their clients and concludes that by a few simple strategies, astrologers’ judgment abilities can be improved. Questions addressed are: How does belief in astrology arise? What judgment processes underlie chart interpretation? What judgment processes underlie the assessment of chart interpretation? The system of astrological correspondences that generations of astrologers have seen as completely valid could be completely false, in the same that the system of phrenological correspondences now known to be completely false was seen by generations of phrenologists as completely valid. The author concludes that, in short, there are many non-astrological reasons why astrology should be seen as valid, none of which require that astrology be true (this of course is not a problem peculiar to astrology.

It can be suggested that one of the main problems facing the astrologer is the attitude of many scientists towards the subject. The claim can be made that the scientific world view is so different from that of the astrologer, that science simply cannot engage with the astrological model at all. Thus science’s dismissal of astrology ste11lS, essentially, from its inability to understand and, even worse, its inability to recognise that it has failed to understand, what the astrologer is talking about. Even attempts to ask the astrologer, in effect, to set up a situation which could be tested, is to ignore that, nevertheless, it will be tested according to the paradigm of science. After all, it is from science that the main concept of testing emerges. Other ways of thinking – and testing – are not considered. In this article the author presents an overview of common scientific attitudes, and then looks with a little more detail at some particular research examples. It begins with an organisation which claims to represent mainstream scientific attitudes, the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims for the Paranormal (CSICOP). It is asserted that to designate a certain phenomenon paranormal’, prior to its investigation, is to proceed from the prejudiced position of normative assumptions.

It is possible that one of the attributes of good astrology’ is in being able to deduce meaning from pattern. But before we expend time and energies in wrestling over astrological meaning, should we .first ask “what is pattern ? ” A corollary would be, if pattern apparently exists, is “how probable is it for this structure or geometry to arise? “To use the well-tried and tested yardstick of p = 0.05, pattern is assumed to be present in the geometric arrangement of data points if it occurs 5% of the time or less. Then begins the wedding of celestial geometry with astrological meaning. sometimes beautifully so. Coherent astrological symbolism crossed with statistical significance offers another kind of marriage and is redolent with beauty. Two tests are described which may help in the hunt for astrological meaning. The function of these tests is to quantify the amount of structure in a given data set. It may be possible to answer the time-honoured question “are there really faces in the fire?”

The number of cars stolen in the Avon and Somerset Constabula1)’ area from owners of each of the twelve birth signs exhibits an approximately sinusoidal variation of one year period and amplitude approximately 10% of the monthly mean. The distribution of owners’ births throughout the year, the potential victim sample, also varies approximately sinusoidally by the same period albeit of amplitude approximately only 5% of the monthly mean and transposed a month or so earlier. Allowing for the variation in numbers of potential victims leaves a residual cycle of owners, birth signs that corresponds closely to that of young thieves. This may suggest that thieves and owners share the same preferences, which differ according to zodiacal sign.